“On October 6 we thought we had the best army. But then, and now, that’s what they want us to believe,” says a worker at Haifa’s Matam Advanced Technology Park in northern Israel, the country’s largest, oldest and leader.
He won’t be the only one.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, does not hesitate when he says that in the coming years the Hebrew State will make a “huge” investment in defense. And this week the Government presented a “war” budget. The prime minister also does not hesitate when he states that “we will fight to the end and with the help of the most advanced technology”. But at home, in the Hebrew technology sector, doubts abound, and the voices that now want to be promoted are, as of now, the most critical of him, his cabinet and his politics.
A veteran Intel worker in this Israeli technological mecca tells this newspaper, under the condition of anonymity: “The Government has lost”. It’s just the beginning, because he and his colleagues, of all ages, and all men, form a small group next to the company gate where “since October 7, no visitors are allowed”, according to the his security staff, and let go: “Last year there was no management, al. It was chaos. And that’s why October 7 was a surprise and it wasn’t. He wasn’t ready.” One of them also adds: “Nor for the brutality [of Hamas]”.
Matam is a technological benchmark in a country where the saying goes that Haifa works, Jerusalem prays and Tel Aviv has fun. And in Haifa, now, among its tech workers, once outside the big crystal buildings, there is a lot of accusing finger towards the Government. But always anonymous. Because war is war and here, too, it will love everything.
On the other side of the road where the headquarters of Intel is located is where most of the leading companies in the country are located. It is a closed space and access is also not allowed. But at the exit, two young people, a man and a woman, both with an intellectual air, dressed casually, explain “without giving the name, it’s better”, once again, that “before October 7 Israel thought it had the best army, the best technology, and what we don’t have is the best intelligence.” They are aware that, away from Israel, people often think the other way around. And they insist: “The Yom Kippur of 1973 was October 6 at two in the morning. This [the attack by Hamas], on the morning of October 7. It’s not a coincidence. It’s a holiday, the juniors warned, but no importance was attached to them. The system is a bit naive. The image that is given outwardly and inwardly is of technological progress, but we do not have the ability to investigate”. And they give a strawberry-filled chocolate bar when they say goodbye.
Efraim Inbar is president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, and he too insists that “Israel was obviously not ready, although now the atmosphere has changed and there is a message to strengthen internal defenses. Errors in intelligence will be studied after the war”. Inbar, further, points to another of the keys that continue to condition today the Israeli retaliation in Gaza for the October 7 attack, which has already reached more than 23,000 dead in the strip: “It was not understood what wanted to make Hamas. Technology is still very important, that hasn’t changed, but the problem is that more forces are needed and not just technology for defense.”
Haifa is also home to one of the jewels in the crown of Israeli education: the Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, a world leader and the country’s first higher education center before the State even existed of Israel Its current relevance is discussed by those who, when accessing it, the bus has to stop, a guard has to check everything, and only after his approval, you can continue on. Also if you go there by taxi, on foot or in any other way. And here, within its communication department, it is also insisted that “we all thought we were prepared [for an attack like the one on October 7], but not”. There is no mention of what is to come.
